Health Minister Dr Aaron Motsoaledi says South Africa (SA) has received the lion\u2019s share of Lenacapavir doses on the continent.<\/p>\n
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Nine countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including SA, Zimbabwe, and Zambia, have secured access to the drug.<\/p>\n
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The new injectable HIV\/AIDS prevention drug was officially rolled out in Mpumalanga province on Friday.<\/p>\n
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Motsoaledi says that the drug is expensive, but a global fund has assisted in providing the continent with two million doses.<\/p>\n
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\u201cRemember, I informed you that the pill is very expensive. It\u2019s sold in America. It\u2019s $28 000 to treat one person per year, which there is no country here on our continent that will ever be able to afford. It\u2019s impossible. But what has happened is that the global fund, which has always been funding HIV\/AIDS, TB, and malaria for the past more than two decades, stepped in to buy two million doses for those African countries that are poor. We got the lion\u2019s share in SA at 900,000 doses. That\u2019s what we\u2019re given.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2018Pills must be taken after injection\u2019<\/p>\n
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Motsoaledi has hailed the antiretroviral drug as a powerful instrument in the fight against HIV and AIDS, saying the drug is aimed at preventing HIV-negative individuals from contracting the virus.<\/p>\n
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He says four pills must be taken after the injection has been administered.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe injection goes together with four pills. We give you the injection, and you take two pills immediately. In the box, there are four pills. You take two pills immediately. Then they give you the box to go home with the other two pills inside. After exactly 24 hours, you take those two other pills, and that is the end with the pills. You just take four at the beginning and then from there, you continue with the injection every six months, as we said.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Speaking at the official launch, President Cyril Ramaphosa said HIV\/AIDS has left destruction and scars in many families across the country and the globe.<\/p>\n
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He said 360 public healthcare centres in the country\u2019s provinces will be administering the drug to save lives. The President urged young people to continue using other preventative measures available beyond the new drug.<\/p>\n
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\u201cTo young South Africans, know that your future is worth protecting. Take advantage of the prevention options that are available to all of us. And one says all this because recently we saw a rise, so that we become more and more aware of what we need to do, because Lenacapavir is not a silver bullet. Yes, it gives us hope, but there are various steps that we must continue taking.\u201d<\/p>\n
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–SABC–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":36402,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[78,26],"class_list":["post-36401","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-featured","news-type-general_news","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SA has received the lion\u2019s share of Lenacapavir doses on the continent","published_date":"2026-06-06 15:19:00","news_description":"SA has received the lion\u2019s share of Lenacapavir doses on the continent","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36405,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/36401\/revisions\/36405"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=36401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}